The Bundesliga’s ‘cult club’ St. Pauli have become the first major football club to quit social media platform Twitter/X.
The Hamburg outfit announced the news in a statement, saying goodbye to a quarter of a million followers.
Explaining the decision, the club wrote on rival platform BlueSky: “The reason for the withdrawal: owner Elon Musk has turned a debate room into a hate amplifier that can also influence the federal election campaign.
“Since Musk took over Twitter, the platform’s former name, he has transformed X into a hate machine. Racism and conspiracy theories spread unhindered or are even curated. Insults and threats are rarely sanctioned and are sold as supposed freedom of expression.
“In addition, after his election victory, Donald Trump announced that he would make Musk the head of a newly created agency. Musk had already actively supported Trump during the election campaign, also with the help of X. It can be assumed that X will also promote authoritarian, misanthropic and right-wing extremist content in the federal election campaign and thus manipulate public discourse.
“FC St. Pauli had already restricted the use of X and posted mainly political statements for diversity and inclusion in order to stand up against hate. Now the club will end its activities on X. The account will no longer be used; however, the content from the past eleven years will remain online as it has historical value.
“The club thanks its members for the critical exchange on the handling of X and calls on followers on the platform to switch to BlueSky. FC St. Pauli’s English account will also be hosted on BlueSky soon.”
UPDATE
Fellow Bundesliga side Werder Bremen have also quite the platform, offering the following statement to their 530,000 followers:
“The management of SV Werder Bremen has made the decision that the Green-Whites will leave the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). Klaus Filbry, Chairman of the Management Board, announced this on Monday during the general meeting.
“Since Elon Musk took over the platform, hate speech, hatred against minorities, right-wing extremist posts and conspiracy theories have increased at an incredible pace under the guise of freedom of expression. The radicalization of the platform is being driven by Elon Musk and his postings himself; he has expressed transphobic, anti-Semitic views and spread conspiracy theories, among other things.
“Almost nothing is sanctioned on the platform anymore. The algorithms and control of Platform X are completely non-transparent. In addition, Elon Musk is instrumentalizing the network as a political weapon, as was recently seen in the US election campaign.
“SV Werder Bremen clearly stands against hate and incitement, against discrimination and exclusion. The Green-Whites stand for diversity, freedom and democracy, for cohesion and solidarity in society.
“With the radicalization of the platform in recent times, a red line has been crossed for the Bundesliga club. The Green-Whites are therefore leaving X and hope that many of the more than 600,000 followers will follow the club on Bluesky in the future.”
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